This paper analyses the relevance of information and communication technologies (ICT) for firms' probability of global sourcing of inputs. Using firm-level data from Germany in 2009, which include mainly small and medium-sized firms, the empirical analysis differentiates between manufacturing...

Spatial diffusion of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is a global continuous accumulative process. But is it uniform or cyclic? Is it possible to skip some of its historical stages? What is a specific feature of the modern stage? Are there any patterns of ICTs interaction? And...

Since ICT factors got growing importance in shaping social and economic differences, the determination of competitiveness in the information economy and society became needful in understanding modern regional disparities of Hungary. To evaluate recent inequalities caused by the factors of...

We estimate the impact of access to information and communication technology on agricultural profitability and child labor among isolated villages in rural Peru. We exploit the timing of an intervention that provided at least one public (satellite) payphone to 6,296 villages that did not...

This study was prepared by Nadine Fabritz while she was working at the Ifo Institute for Economic Research in the Department for Human Capital and Innovation. It was completed in June 2014 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich in October...

In recent years, enormous changes are noted worldwide when broad adoption of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). These unique technologies – often perceived as economic development incentives – have a great ability to spread at high pace and low cost in world countries,...

The ICT and software industry have evolved as twin global industries now spanning a large number of interconnected clusters in the developed and emerging countries. Firms, governments and other actors have re-established different relationships and structures throughout 1980-1984, early 1990s,...

Information technology has become a very important issue in citizens' relations. It started with e-commerce followed by e-business and ended by e-government. Firms and consumers use internet to provide information and perform many of their business actions. During the last years Governments also...